Friday, 13 November 2015

Arsons, marches and petitions: the 1970s abortion debate in New Zealand

Creating New Zealand’s abortion law

Abortion was illegal in NZ until the 1970s unless required to save the mother’s life. Nevertheless, the procedure was widely practiced and often unsafe. In 1927 a Department of Health official estimated 10,000 abortions took place annually - with NZ having one of the world’s highest death rates from botched abortions. This prompted the government to set up a Committee of Inquiry in 1936. Instead of focusing on the high rate of maternal deaths, the Committee focused on the falling birth rate and recommended an increase in family allowances. A 1939 British ruling influenced the interpretation of abortion law in NZ to include mental health as grounds for the procedure, but many doctors refused to perform abortions.

Some illegal abortion providers were medically skilled such
as maternity nurses and chemists, but many were not - and took money from women
who, due to the illegality, would not go to the police if things went wrong. In
the 1940s it could cost 100 pounds to purchase an abortion from a doctor (around $8,000 today) and in the 1930s Napier abortionist Annie Aves charged 12 pounds (around
$1,300).

The contraceptive pill was introduced in the 1960s and was
accompanied by changing attitudes to the role of women in society. In 1967
Britain broadened the grounds for abortion to include socio-economic factors. The
number of terminations rose dramatically, partly because non-British women
began travelling there for the service, too – including around 35,500 French
women in 1973. The numbers soon fell when other countries also liberalised
their laws or practices such as USA in 1973 and France in 1975.

By 1971 abortion services had been liberalised throughout
Australia, and NZ women were crossing the Tasman to obtain services unavailable
in their own country. The Society for the Protection of the Unborn Child (SPUC)
formed in 1970 to prevent NZ’s laws coming into alignment with other Western
countries. SPUC’s core support came from the Catholic Church and its members
included high-ranking MPs such as Norman Kirk (Prime Minister 1972-1974).
Another high profile anti-abortion group was Feminists for Life, who thought
pregnant women should be better supported with maternity leave and childcare.

Ref: New Zealand Ephemera - Feminists for life flier, Sir George Grey Special Collections, Auckland Libraries.

In 1971 The Abortion Law Reform Association of New Zealand
(ALRANZ) formed with the view that abortion was a decision for a woman and her
doctor. In 1973 WONAAC (Women’s National Abortion Action Campaign) split from
ALRANZ because they thought abortion was a woman’s right and her decision
alone.

A National Research Bureau Survey in 1972 found an average
6,500 illegal abortions took place every year, out of a total of 11,000
attempts. By 1976, the NZ Women’s Weekly
reported 4,000 women a year were travelling to Australia for a safe, free
termination.

First private
abortion clinic

Access to abortion eased in May 1974 when the country’s
first private abortion clinic opened – The Auckland Medical Aid Centre (AMAC).
Three months later, MP and SPUC member Dr Gerald Wall presented a Bill to
Parliament requiring all abortions be provided in licensed hospitals rather than
private clinics. Opposition to the Wall Bill came from many organisations
including ALRANZ, WONAAC, The Medical Association, the General Practitioners
Society, the Council of the New Zealand Obstetrical and Gynaecological Society
– and the NZ Herald’s editorial page.

In September that year, police illegally raided AMAC and
took 546 confidential patients’ files. One of the clinic’s doctors, Jim
Woolnough, was prosecuted for providing illegal abortions. He was found not
guilty due to his sincere belief that the abortions he performed were
necessary. The Crown appealed, but the Court of Appeal upheld Woolnough’s
acquittal.

When Dr Wall was interviewed in the NZ Women’s Weekly about liberalising abortion laws, he said: “If we
accept the taking of human life [the foetus] for social reasons, then we have
started on a particular road. The end of that road,” he paused significantly,
“would be the killing of politicians and other people just because somebody
thought they were nuisances.”

The Wall Bill came into effect in September 1975 - but AMAC
didn’t close, it became a private hospital, moving into the old Aotea Private
Hospital in Epsom.

A year later, an arson attack gutted part of the Clinic
causing $100,000 worth of damage.

Royal Commission of
Inquiry

The abortion debate became so heated Parliament set up a
Royal Commission of Inquiry into Contraception, Sterilisation and Abortion in
1975. SPUC gathered 113,381 signatures on an anti-abortion petition which was
presented to the government soon after.

In 1977 the Committee recommended that woman should present
a case for an abortion to a medical panel. Only SPUC supported this. When the Bill
was introduced into Parliament MP Whetu Tirikatene-Sullivan said it contravened
“a woman’s personal liberty because freedom from unwanted reproduction is the
very essence of woman’s equality.” She said the Bill ignored “the reality that
abortion is a fact of life practiced in all cultures from time immemorial.”

The Bill attracted amendments that made it one of the most
restrictive pieces of abortion legislation in the Western world. It confirmed
abortion as a crime and sanctioned it only if two approved certifying
consultants agreed an abortion was necessary for the mother’s mental or
physical health.

After the Bill passed AMAC closed due to an ambiguous
amendment stating that abortion was only legal if the danger to a woman’s
health “could not be averted by any other means”. Within days, The Sisters
Overseas Service (SOS) was set up to help women travel to Australia for terminations.
In 14 months SOS helped send more than 2,000 women across the Tasman. Craccum estimated that this generated
over a million dollars (around $5.2 million in today’s terms) in travel
expenses based on $500 per woman, and that the NZ Government would have taken
$64,000 in travel tax (over $300,000 today).

An arson attack burnt down the SOS headquarters in Auckland
on Easter Monday 1978.

In February 1978 REPEAL formed to collect signatures for a
petition aimed at repealing the C, S, and A Act. Over 318,000 people signed in
three months – making this NZ’s third biggest petition ever. However, the
petition was given such a low priority by the Petitions Committee that it was
not formally presented to Parliament.

The Act was administered by the Abortion Supervisory
Committee (ASC) who requested changes be made to the law to make it workable.
In 1979 AMAC was licenced to reopen, and public abortion services were also
provided in Auckland and Wellington. By 1981 the ASC said most abortions for NZ
women took place in this country, rather than Australia.

After the Act

In 1982 Dr Melvyn Wall went to court to prevent a 15 year
old girl from having an abortion, but the Court of Appeal found he could not
represent the foetus. An anti-abortion group challenged the ASC’s management of
abortion law in 2011, and the Court of Appeal ruled that there was no foetal
right to life.

Medical techniques have advanced since the 1970s enabling
earlier, safer first trimester abortions, but the requirements of the Act mean
women may not be able to take advantage of these improvements. By the time a
woman has realised she’s pregnant, gone for counselling, and seen two doctors,
she can be in the second trimester. On the 30th anniversary of the
Act, MP Steve Chadwick (NZ Herald, 7
July 2007) said the number of steps a woman had to go through was a major flaw
and the law needed review. MP Paul Hutchison agreed, saying it was time the
country got its reproductive strategy right.

Hi Leanne, I am very concerned that you have used a tax payer funded service to promote a very one sided potted-history of Abortion in New Zealand. The role of a public servant such as your self is to represent in a fair and unbiased manner a range of New Zealand views on contentious issues such as this one. A good example of this is the Te Ara NZ Encyclopedia article you used as one of your references. The rest of your sources and quotes are completely one sided and biased toward the view that abortion-on-demand is the only reasonable stance, supposing that this represents the vast majority of New Zealand views. This is not the case. The New Zealand law as it stands is very restrictive, which was the goal of our parliamentary repesentatives, to balance women's rights with the protection of unborn children, female and male. In fact, the long title of the act includes the statement that it's purpose is to "provide for the circumstances and procedures under which abortions may be authorised after having full regard to the rights of the unborn child". It is your right to -as a private citizen- advocate for a change in this law to take away the rights of the unborn child- but not use your position as a public servant to push your own agenda. Regardless of the morality of advocating the denigration of unborn human beings, it is also completely unprofessional. Librarians are purveyors and caretakers of our nations history in totality, including the history they don't agree with. Partisan bias destroys the respect society has for your profession. Please reflect on how you would feel if another librarian only selected Pro-life aspects of NZ history and opinions in such a way, using your Pro- abortion taxes to do so. Yours sincerely, Cedric Piggin. cedric@free.net.nz

Interesting material presented but what about the other side of the picture. Because there was one and it wasn't simply a group of old men and women moaning away. It was standing up for a set of values in the face of something thought of at the time as 'progressive and modern'.

I agree. New Zealand history is far more nuanced than has been presented, as is any history a complex set of events and attitudes. There are many, many factors to this story that have been omitted. This is a 'perspective', not a history.